The University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) has acquiesced to a settlement of $500,000 to put to rest allegations that it obscured details about foreign research support in federal grant proposals, according to a recent announcement by the Department of Justice. The allegations, bearing serious implications for the integrity of federal funding processes, stemmed from the university's purported failure to disclose financial backing from foreign entities for faculty researchers who were directly involved in research grant proposals to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of the Army during a five-year snapshot between 2015 and 2020.
Institutions must disclose any current and pending support from any sources for the principal investigators and co-principal investigators whenever they are in pursuit of federal grants, agencies need this information to prevent duplicate funding and ensure that those who lay claim to the grants have the necessary resources to fulfill the research for which they’re contending, however, the United States claimed that UMD did not inform the NSF about financial support from Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., nor did it disclose to the NSF and Army about two other researchers' funding from Taobao (China) Software Co., Ltd. (Alibaba).
The investigation, which took off as a proactive measure by the NSF Office of Inspector General (OIG), aimed to ensure that foreign contracts and gifts subject to Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 were being reported in federal grant submissions as mandated. United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, Erek L. Barron, emphasized the gravity of the situation in a statement, saying, "Complete and accurate disclosures are essential to federal agencies that make decisions on awarding federal grants," and that "Those individuals and universities that knowingly fail to do so skew the grant awarding process in their favor and will be held accountable", as detailed by the Department of Justice.
NSF Inspector General Allison Lerner stated, Lack of institutional oversight of individuals receiving Federal funds poses a serious risk to the success of that enterprise highlighting the stakes of the issue at hand that go beyond just monetary transactions, but the investigation and the subsequent settlement demonstrate, the repercussions for not adhering to the guidelines expected in the grant submitting process can be severe and far-reaching.
The resolution is a collective achievement between the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, with the cooperative efforts from NSF OIG and the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division, spearheaded by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas F. Corcoran.
